Professional History
Gregg Erickson is the principal of Erickson & Associates, an economic consulting firm serving government, business and the legal profession from offices in Juneau Alaska and Bend, Oregon. Since 2001 he has served as a trustee of the New York-based Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, an organization dedicated to the Georgist principle that economic value from natural resources and natural opportunities should belong equally to all members of society. As the foundation’s long-time treasurer he sits on the executive committee and chairs committees managing the foundation’s multi-million dollar endowment and its employee pension plan.
Erickson, now 77, graduated from high school in Anchorage, Alaska. He attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and in 1966 joined the University of Alaska's Institute of Social and Economic Research as a resources economist. In 1972 he left Alaska to take an appointment as a research fellow with Resources for the Future (RFF), a Washington, D.C., think-tank.
Erickson’s work in energy economics at RFF led to appointment in 1973 to the staff of the late Sen. Henry M. ("Scoop") Jackson, and later to the staff of the Permanent Investigations Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate.
In 1976, Mr. Erickson returned to Alaska to become director of research for the Alaska Legislature, where he played a key role in overhauling of state’s oil tax policies, and helped draft the constitutional amendment establishing the Alaska Permanent Fund. In 1982 he helped draft legislation to establish the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend and testified in favor of the program alongside then-Gov. Jay Hammond.
In 1984, Erickson joined the Alaska Office of the Governor and became the state government’s senior economist. In 1989, following the Exxon Valdez oil spill, he was appointed to direct the state’s efforts in oil spill impact assessment and restoration.
In 1991, Erickson left state government, opened Erickson & Associates, and with his wife, Judith, co-founded the Alaska Budget Report, an award-winning weekly newsletter. The couple sold he publication in 2006, but Gregg remained an editor until 2015.
Erickson is co-author of Mineral Policy and the Public Lands, editor of two other books, and the author of more than 150 articles, papers and monographs on resource economics, public finance and fiscal policy. Recent policy papers include “Dreams, Risks and Realities: An Economic Analysis of Plans to Dam Alaska’s Susitna River,” prepared for the Alaska Chapter of Trout Unlimited (2014), and “The Great Alaska Recession,” prepared for the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority (2015). He frequently testifies as an expert witness before legislative committees, in administrative hearings, arbitration, and in state and federal courts.
He and his wife have four grown children and six grandchildren.